Google: http://www.google.com/ Search tip #1: When searching for a known article, search for the title in quotation marks. For example, “"Place, space, and health: GIS and epidemiology"
Google Advanced Search: http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en Google Advanced Search can help you to build your search.
Advance Search Tips: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861 Advance Search Tips explain how to us quotation marks for phrase searches, to search only within a specific website, and how to use the asterisk/wild card. Additional tips can be found at Google Help Cheat Sheet: http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html Search Google using the terms Google search tips tricks for even more options…
Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en&tab=ws Google Scholar “provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature . From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.” Google Scholar “aims to rank documents the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each document, where it was published, who it was written by, as well as how often and how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature.” Google Scholar is often used along with PubMed/Medlineto find articles.
Google Scholar Preferences: http://scholar.google.com/scholar_preferences?hl=en&as_sdt=100000000000000 By setting preferences you can have search results indicate if you local college or university holds the full text article.
PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed PubMed has recently updated its website in an effort to make it more user friendly. Online tutorials are available to help users improve their search skills. Additional tutorials can be found at HealthLinks How To: PubMed at UW at http://healthlinks.washington.edu/howto/pubmed/ Google Scholar is often used along with PubMed/Medline to find articles.
PubMed is a freely available “open access” database containing over 19 million citations. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean free full text access to all the cited articles. If full text is available for free, it will be label as so on the results page. Just click on the icon or hyperlink and you will link to the location where you can then download a PDF.
MyNCBI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/ MyNCBI is a wonderful PubMed tool that allows you to save searches, collect favorite article citations, email yourself search updates, and set personal search preferences. Learn more about MyNCBI at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/about/
Public Health Digital Library: http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/library.aspx The PHSKC’s Digital Library provides to online public health resources, including free and fee-based full text articles, links to authoritative public health websites and searchable databases; however, access to document delivery and reference assistance is only available to PHSKC employees. The webpage also links to resources supported by our Assessment, Policy Development and Evaluation department.
Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce: http://phpartners.org/ Partners is “a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations, and health sciences libraries which provides timely, convenient access to selected public health resources on the Internet.”
Data.gov: http://www.data.gov/ Data.gov is “a U.S. government website launched in May 2009 by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra. The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government” and will "become a repository for all the information the government collects." Exceptions will be data that is private, or restricted by national security reasons.
Libraries in Washington State: http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/search_library.aspx Many libraries in our state subscribe to electronic databases via the Washington State Library Statewide Database Licensing Project (http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/libraries/projects/sdl/). Using your public library card, you can gain access to a wide range of online electronic resources, including ProQuest products. Develop a relationship with your local public librarians and educate them about your information needs. They can also assist with interlibrary loans.
ProQuest, headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, creates a wide range of information resources. The ProQuest database available via many nonprofit libraries in Washington State provides access to full text scholarly journals, trade publications, magazines, and newspapers. To access you public libraries electronic databases, visit their website and look for a link to databases, electronic resources, or databases & websites. To log in you will need you library card number and PIN.
University of Washington HealthLinks: http://healthlinks.washington.edu/ Get to know your local college and university librarians and educated them about your information needs. Online access to full text is often restricted to “non-affiliates”—individuals who are not faculty, students, or staff; however, many colleges and universities allow access onsite. For example, the University of Washington has several public access computer stations where visitors can access restricted electronic resources. While print resources can be photocopied onsite, books cannot be borrowed by non-affiliates.
National Network of Libraries of Medicine: http://nnlm.gov/ The NN/LM’s “mission of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM) is to advance the progress of medicine and improve the public health by providing all U.S. health professionals with equal access to biomedical information and improving the public's access to information to enable them to make informed decisions about their health. The Program is coordinated by the National Library of Medicine and carried out through a nationwide network of health science libraries and information centers.” The Pacific Northwest Region office is located within the University of Washington Health Sciences Library: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/characteristics/washington.html
Worldcat: http://www.worldcat.org/ Worldcat is “the world's largest network of library content and services.” When searching for books, articles, CDs, or DVDs, you can narrow your search results to your own zip code, and find out which libraries near you hold the item you are looking for.
Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/ Zotero: http://www.zotero.org/ Connotea and Zotero are two free online reference management tools that allow you to save, organize, and print out your citations/references. Similar free tools include CiteULike and Mendeley.
RSS = Really Simple Syndication allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites that interest you. The information comes to you, you don’t have to visit multiple websites to view the information. It is being offered by more and more news-related sites, websites, blogs and other online publishers. RSS In Plain English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader
Goggle News Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&gl=us Google News Alerts allow you to monitor developing news stories or news on topics of interest. You can email them to yourself or send them to your RSS Reader.
Social Media is based on user participation and user-generated content. It encompasses websites like… Facebook MySpace Linked In Del.icio.us Epernicus StumbleUpon Twitter LibraryThing DailyStrength Goodreads LiveMocha… Social Networking in Plain English: http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6a_KF7TYKVc
Heal-WA: http://heal-wa.org/ Heal-WA is “a collection of health information resources funded by license fees from selected health care providers in Washington State. Its mission is to provide evidence-based information to support patient care.” Who has access? Acupuncturists, Chiropractors, Massage Practitioners, Mental Health Counselors, Psychologists, Licensed Social Workers, Naturopaths, Optometrists, Physicians, PAs, ARNPs, Podiatrists, and Registered Nurses. “ My profession is not named in the bill that sponsored this project. Can I pay to get access to the items contained in HEAL-WA? Unfortunately, there is no provision for individuals who are not members of one of the named professions to get access to the resources contained in HEAL-WA. This is because access is determined by legislation, and is based on an individual's being licensed to practice in certain professions named in the bill.” “ If my profession is not included in the project, what can I do to get access? We recommend that you contact the Washington State chapter of your professional association. Ask the association's Governmental Relations committee to lobby the State Legislature for your group to be included, so its members can have access to resources through HEAL-WA.”
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